Hector Timid ........................... Mr. J. C. Graham Captain Cannon .......................... Mr. Mark Wilton Dr. Wiseman ........................... Mr. H. E. Bowring Thornton ................................ Mr. J. E. Evans Louisa ................................ Miss Lina Mousley Chatter ............................... Miss Sarah Napper It would be unreasonable to expect an audience to sit through such a lengthy performance nowadays, but such was the dramatic pabulum with which we had to entice them into the theatre "_in that elder day_." The "cast" in the above program shows that the stock company had become decidedly weak, a number of amateurs were worked in, and the three comedians, Margetts, Bowring and Graham, are playing parts altogether out of their line. The lady assigned the "leading lady's" part (Miss Mousley) was a clever amateur and this was about her first appearance at this theatre. The "leading ladies" "seem to have been all in retirement." Mr. Wilton, "a serio-comic," playing the "leading heavy," Lord Say, and Mr. Graham playing" the "second heavy," Courtney, shows there was a great sparsity of "heavy men," and Margetts and Bowring both playing serious "character parts," plainly indicates the low ebb the company had reached. It was now a difficult, nay an impossible, task to adequately "cast" one of the great classical plays. Such was the status of the stock company at this period, its efficiency having been gradually weakened by the steadily increasing innovation of the combination or traveling companies. Many of the most popular stars had not up to this time surrounded themselves with their own supporting companies, but continued to flit to and fro across the dramatic firmament, pausing to shed their luster for a new nights wherever they could find a cluster of nebula (stock company) to shine among.